Fire starting has been an essential survival skill for thousands of years. Traditional fire starting methods involve placing dry kindling or other suitable tinder under a fire sustaining fuel source such as wood logs. From here, the kindling or tinder is ignited which in turn ignites the wood logs or other fire sustaining fuel sources. However, the success in using traditional fire starting methods largely depends on factors such as the type and quantity of kindling, the dryness of the wood logs or other fuel sources, the weather conditions, the skill of the user, and other similar factors.
Consequently, the quest for devices to improve the success rate and reliability of fire starting has been underway for many years. The majority of proposed solutions have attempted to replace traditional kindling with liquid, solid, or gel fuel sources. However, many of these devices have undesirable attributes such as being highly flammable, admitting toxic fumes when burned, having a strong chemical odor, not being safe to handle, ship, and store, or requiring special containers to keep them waterproof. Moreover, proposed solutions have failed to provide an easy to light device capable of igniting a fire sustaining fuel source in extreme weather conditions, such as high winds, torrential rain, or blowing snow, when starting a fire can be challenging. Therefore, a device that is easy to ignite and capable of sustaining a substantially large flame in adverse weather conditions would be advantageous for improving the success rate and reliability of fire starting in survival situations.